HOME AND NOT

Monday, May 23, 2011

We expect it in the NW, even quite a bit of it, but 2011 has to be record of sorts. I doubt that we have had more than 10 days without rain. since the year began.

Le Sommail on the Canal du Midi

Fortunately, tomorrow I am flying off to sunny (unseasonably so) Belgium and the south of France where I plan to sit in the sun alongside the canal while sipping something cool and alcoholic, and then close my eyes and breathe in the warm air. I am very lucky and I know it!

Friday, April 22, 2011

My new red loveseat under an old poster project by my grandfather and a floating boat dreamed by a lifelong friend's daughter, now a friend herself. On the seat three cushions: a friend's gift, poppies from Venice and nasturtiums from Leonardo da V's manor house in France. On its right an antique sewing box from my mother's house and the old backgammon set she and I opened most evenings. To complete these lovely memories what I need now is a good movie, a bottle glass of wine and M nestled in there close to me. . .

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Recently the author of a French blog mentioned Simone de Beauvoir’s voluminous “essai” on aging, La Vieillesse. It was translated into English as The Coming of Age by an author who in the past provided me with many pleasant hours of escapist reading, Patrick O’Brian.

Amazon offers a used paperback copy in French at an astonishing $89.85 versus the English Paperback edition of $10.49, while my local bookstore, the famous Powells Bookstore, asks for $15.95. What gives here? Is the used bookseller touched? It makes no mention of some rare quality, the book wasn’t signed by Simone de B, and is "probably not" a first edition.

So why the astronomical price tag? The latent Luddite in me leans toward Powells rather than the amazon.com machine. I shop at Powells regularly and as I write this have a suitcase filled with books I hope to sell them next week so I can spend a delicious hour or two deciding on my next in-store purchase, like the English version of La Vieillesse, for instance.

These price discrepancies have me wonder what my own French lit collection, some of it going back to my first purchases as a teenager, might be worth. However, they may be too old to interest Powells and, in any case, they have kept me company for half a century or more: they are me and therefore not for sale.

More troubling than the price is reading the essay in English. It seems a form of intellectual laxity to opt for my preferred reading language, English. I have thought about, talked about, engaged in, agreed and disagreed on the goods and ills of translation, and when I do I never fail to remember Jane Eyre, the sheer wonder of reading it in its exquisite English original version, after several reads of (a dreadful) French translation.

By reading The Coming of Age would I miss the subtleties, the beauty of Madame de Beauvoir’s style? I could only know by reading at least one chapter of each version. As it happens, in a few weeks I'll behere and will look for La Vieillesse in this lovely store, and later, dear reader, I will let you know what I found.